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Street Fighter 2 veteran Dhalsim was announced for Street Fighter 5 at the Paris Game Show 2015. This came after yet another hint from producer Yoshinori Ono.

Dhalsim has always been a unique character to the Street Fighter cast, a one of a kind fighter with teleports, slow moving projectiles and long range pokes. Dhalsim has been present in most Street Fighter titles and even in ones he hasn’t been present in (namely Street Fighter 3rd Strike), his moveset has inspired other characters such as Necro’s long range normals.

As a character, Dhalsim does not look too dissimilar to his previous incarnations. A few new abilities can be seen however. His V-skill appears to be a new technique called Yoga Float, this allows Dhalsim to jump and hover in place mid arc for a few seconds and allow him to use all of his airborne attacks. His V-trigger is called Yoga Burner. Dhalsim fires flames onto the floor which, when stood in, causes the opponent to lose recoverable health. We can also see an arcing variant of Yoga Flame which could be a very useful anti air and combo setup tool.

Dhalsim also has a new visual design, sporting a beard and fetching turban. Whilst not a massive overall, this new variant of Dhalsim is a refreshing enough to not feel like just a rehash of the same character.

This trailer was also released alongside a screenshot hinting at the 6 upcoming characters that will be added to Street Fighter 5 post release and available to buy with the in game currency. With character assets having been datamined from the beta version of the game, there are files that could possibly relate to characters Alex, Guile, Urien, Ibuki and Juri which has led people to speculate that the screenshots could in fact relate to these files. With the screenshot highlighting such character specific features as Kunais (associated with Ibuki) and a military insignia (associated with Guile), these speculations might be substantial.

Silhouettes of the 6 hinted characters.

Finally, Capcom has also confirmed that Street Fighter 5 will be released in North America and Europe on February the 16th for both PC and PS4.

Quick Take

It has been a wild ride for Street Fighter 5 news the past few days after the beta finished, with waves of speculation, hints and news. Regarding Dhalsim however, it is a character reveal that I feel many people are underwhelmed by. With Capcom representatives suggesting that the final returning character would not necessarily be linked to the original Street Fighter 2 cast, it lead a lot of people to hope for the return of characters such as 3rd Strikes Urien and Alex or Street Fighter 4’s Juri Haan. Whilst we will more than likely being seeing these characters within the first year of release as DLC, 8 of the 16 base cast are now returning characters from Street Fighter 2. I am sure i’m not the only one who feels disappointed in Capcom for not including more lesser known or brand new characters in the core roster. However, with Street Fighter 5 aiming to appeal to the more casual fans who couldn’t get past Street Fighter 4’s mechanical complexity, it at least makes sense that including these well known characters that people are already familiar with would help in that goal.